Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­istry and Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) have iden­ti­fied suit­able Car­ni­val spaces in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah for Car­ni­val events to be held, and con­sul­ta­tion with oth­er stake­hold­ers is al­so on­go­ing, says Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin.

Min­is­ter Ben­jamin gave the in­for­ma­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, re­ply­ing to Op­po­si­tion MP Hans Des Vi­gnes.

Not­ing the po­ten­tial im­pact on the Car­ni­val, en­ter­tain­ment and tourism in­dus­tries caused by the Gov­ern­ment’s ban on Car­ni­val events at pub­lic fa­cil­i­ties, Des Vi­gnes had asked Ben­jamin to state what al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments are be­ing made for these events to be host­ed.

Ben­jamin said the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to the Car­ni­val in­dus­try. “The Min­istry and Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion have iden­ti­fied suit­able Car­ni­val spaces in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we’re in con­sul­ta­tion with oth­er stake­hold­ers,” she said.

“The min­istry has iden­ti­fied suit­able spaces, and our door re­mains open to each and every one in the in­dus­try that wish­es to meet with us as we chart the way for­ward to the biggest, the bright­est and the bet­ter, the big­ger, the bumper Car­ni­val T&T has ever seen,” Ben­jamin added.

Des Vi­gnes, not­ing that the min­is­ter an­nounced this with­out con­sul­ta­tion from the same stake­hold­ers, asked for as­sur­ances that the sug­ges­tions, lo­gis­ti­cal con­cerns and al­ter­na­tive sites pro­posed by the TT Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion and oth­er af­fect­ed stake­hold­ers would be ful­ly and for­mal­ly in­te­grat­ed in­to the min­istry’s fi­nal al­ter­na­tive venue strat­e­gy, “...and not mere­ly not­ed,” Des Vi­gnes added.

Des Vi­gnes was halt­ed by House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh, who said Des Vi­gnes had “of­fend­ed the time (lim­it)” and the Stand­ing Or­ders did not pro­vide for as­sur­ances to be sought, on­ly to ask sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions.

Op­po­si­tion MP Ka­reem Mar­celle asked Ben­jamin what the oth­er pro­posed venues for events to be held apart from the QPS were.

Ben­jamin said the ques­tion was asked and an­swered and added, “I did state that my Min­istry, along with the NCC, we’ve made sev­er­al spaces avail­able in the QPS, and I al­so said, ad­di­tion­al­ly, we’re await­ing dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers to sug­gest, and I’m al­so in con­sul­ta­tion with oth­er min­istries. It’s al­so pub­lic knowl­edge that we made venues avail­able in the Ch­aguara­mas area,” she added.